If a Court Orders Electronic Monitoring, It Should Know What Happens Next

If a Court Orders Electronic Monitoring, It Should Know What Happens Next

Electronic monitoring is often discussed as though the court order itself creates accountability.

A judge orders GPS monitoring, continuous alcohol monitoring, remote breath testing, or another form of supervision. The participant is enrolled. A device is installed or activated. From the outside, it can appear that the system is now in place and the monitoring has begun.

But the order is only the beginning.

What happens after that order determines whether electronic monitoring becomes a meaningful supervision tool or simply another condition written on a piece of paper.

The questions that matter most are often operational ones. Who receives the information generated by the technology? What information requires review? Who determines whether an event may represent noncompliance? How quickly is it reviewed? Who is notified? What happens after normal business hours? How is the event documented? What happens when someone does not respond? Who can explain the information months later if the case ends up in court?

Those questions are not secondary to electronic monitoring.

They are electronic monitoring.

A Device Produces Information. A Program Creates Accountability.

Modern monitoring technology can provide an extraordinary amount of information. Depending on the technology being used, a supervision program may receive location data, zone events, tamper information, alcohol related data, testing results, equipment status information, missed communications, and numerous other types of information.

But information does not create accountability by itself.

Someone has to understand what that information means, determine what requires action, follow the appropriate response protocol, communicate with the supervising authority, document what occurred, and preserve the information necessary for future review.

This is why electronic monitoring cannot be evaluated solely by looking at the device being used.

A sophisticated piece of technology placed inside a poorly designed program can still produce poor results. Conversely, a well-designed program begins by identifying the supervision objective and then building the policies, staffing, training, technology, communication, and response structure necessary to support it.

The technology is one component of that system.

It should never be mistaken for the entire system.

Courts Should Understand the Program They Are Ordering

When electronic monitoring is imposed, everyone involved should have a reasonable understanding of what the program actually does.

That begins with the capabilities and limitations of the technology.

A GPS device can provide location information, but the existence of location information does not automatically mean someone is continuously watching a participant move on a map. An alcohol monitoring technology may identify information requiring review, but the process for analyzing, confirming, reporting, and responding to that information can vary depending upon the technology and program structure.

The same principle applies throughout electronic monitoring.

Terms such as alert, event, notification, violation, confirmation, tamper, zone entry, missed test, and equipment issue should have defined meanings within the program. Those meanings should be understood by the professionals who receive the information and by the agencies relying upon it.

Without that clarity, different people can look at the same information and develop very different expectations about what occurred and what should happen next.

Professional monitoring programs should remove as much of that ambiguity as possible.

The Response Matters as Much as the Alert

One of the most important questions in electronic monitoring is also one of the simplest:

What happens when something occurs?

A monitoring program should have clearly established response protocols before an event happens, not after.

Those protocols should address who receives information, how it is prioritized, what requires immediate action, what requires further investigation, when the supervising authority is contacted, what documentation is created, and what escalation process applies when circumstances become more serious.

The appropriate response will not be identical for every technology, participant, agency, or supervision objective. Electronic monitoring programs operate in different jurisdictions with different policies, resources, legal requirements, and levels of risk.

That flexibility is necessary.

What should not be flexible is whether a thoughtful process exists at all.

The Program Must Be Able to Explain Its Work

Electronic monitoring frequently becomes important long after the original event occurred.

A probation officer may need to understand what happened weeks later. A prosecutor or defense attorney may request records. A judge may ask questions during a hearing. A provider representative may be called to testify about the technology, the data, the procedures that were followed, or the meaning of a reported event.

At that point, professional documentation becomes critical.

A monitoring provider should be able to explain what information was received, how it was handled, what actions were taken, who was notified, and how the relevant records were maintained.

That requires more than technology.

It requires policies, training, quality control, documentation standards, knowledgeable personnel, and an organization capable of standing behind its work.

The credibility of electronic monitoring depends heavily upon the credibility of the professionals operating the program.

New Technology Requires the Same Discipline

The electronic monitoring market continues to evolve, and innovation should be welcomed when it improves supervision, increases accessibility, reduces unnecessary burdens, or provides agencies with better information.

But the availability of a technology does not automatically establish that it is appropriate for court supervised use.

Before a new technology becomes part of a monitoring program, agencies and providers should understand what it measures, how it measures it, what information it produces, how reliable that information is, what its limitations are, how it performs under real world conditions, how the information will be interpreted, and how it fits within the legal and operational structure of the program.

That may require independent examination, testing, validation, legal review, operational review, training, and pilot evaluation before broader implementation.

Innovation and scrutiny are not competing ideas.

Responsible innovation requires both.

Electronic Monitoring Should Never Be a Black Box

Courts and supervising agencies should not have to wonder what happens after an electronic monitoring order is issued.

Participants should be given clear expectations.

Supervising authorities should understand what information they will receive.

Providers should have established procedures for reviewing and responding to events.

Technology should be selected because it supports the supervision objective, not simply because it is available.

And when questions arise, the professionals responsible for the program should be capable of explaining what happened and why.

That level of transparency is part of what turns electronic monitoring from a collection of devices into a professional system of supervision.

It is also one of the reasons NASP exists.

Our profession has spent decades developing increasingly capable technology. The next stage of its development must include the same level of attention to the professional systems surrounding that technology.

Better policies. Better training. Better documentation. Better education. Better communication. Better standards.

Because when a court orders electronic monitoring, the most important question is not simply what device will be used.

The most important question is what happens next.

The National Association of Service Providers is working to advance professionalism, education, accountability, and best practices throughout the electronic monitoring profession. Our goal is to help providers, courts, supervising agencies, and industry partners build monitoring programs that are effective, understandable, defensible, and worthy of the trust placed in them.

About the Author

John Hays is the President of the National Association of Service Providers (NASP) and a longtime leader in the electronic monitoring industry. Passionate about professionalism, education, and collaboration, he helps advance NASP’s mission of providing the industry with a unified voice and promoting best practices nationwide.